


hearts in hands

by bluexshift



Series: battle-frenzied [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Feral Alec, M/M, and his boyfriend thinks it's the hottest thing he's ever seen, this man has entered a battle frenzy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 04:43:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18381200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluexshift/pseuds/bluexshift
Summary: a mysterious invitation for magnus leads to a trap, which leads to alec defending a group of magically drained warlocks with only a dagger to hand.he's always loved a challenge though, and this doesn't even qualify.





	hearts in hands

**Author's Note:**

> i have not proofread this, because i am very tired, but girls and gays it is 2019 and we are making feral alec a thing.

Alec Lightwood is beautiful. Alec in a fight is a spectacle. Alec in a battle frenzy, blood staining his teeth as he grins, far too wide, and his eyes focus laser sharp on his next victim?

He is _glorious_.

All at once, he is avenging angel and ferocious predator, and Magnus is watching his movements as though they are the brush strokes of a Renaissance painter and the air is the canvas. Usually, Alec is controlled, aware of every move he makes, like he ought to be as both a leader and a primarily ranged fighter. Magnus can’t deny that there is still control in his muscles, but it has shifted somehow, and he can see Alec relying on pure instinct in a way he doesn’t often. Alec is refined power, and as he breaks a demon’s spine with his bare hands, here he is in all his raw potential.

Neither of them had been expecting the night to end this way. Magnus had been invited to a surprise warlock conference, here in New York, which Lorenzo claimed to know nothing about – he may have actually been telling the truth, since he waved his own invitation in Magnus’s face. He had brought Alec with him, partly because he always wanted Alec by his side and partly because the invite was addressed to Magnus Bane and he had balked at that, immediately deciding to bring his husband to show the host that they were Lightwood-Bane, thank you very much.

As it turns out, it’s lucky he did, since the whole party was an elaborate trap.

It had been suspicious when the lights had switched off and the windows and doors of the hall had slammed shut, plunging the room into darkness, but there _was_ a reason that warlocks were stereotyped as being over-dramatic. When the wave of magic rolled over the guests, not seconds after, Magnus had known they were in trouble. Instantly, he identified it as a magic limiter of a sorts – all warlocks had varying reserves of magical energy, and this spell was designed to sap a certain amount of it.

It was incredibly illegal to use, since it could kill warlocks below a certain power level, but Magnus figured the user probably didn’t care about silly things like laws or morals.

It _had_ immediately killed a young warlock among their number that Magnus didn’t recognise, causing fury to rise in his veins, and the chaos arising distracted them all – possibly what had been intended. Fortunately, the perpetrator hadn’t counted on Alec.

“Magnus? Demons,” he’d called out, back straight and eyes sharp. The crowd responded with shock.

“How many?”

“Lots.”

Magnus looked at the panicked faces of his people, before clenching his eyes shut and focusing on himself, reaching into his magic. “I have enough reserves left to summon your weapons or to put up a shield for fifteen minutes, Alexander. Which?”

Alec doesn’t hesitate as he picks the shield. It’s one of the things Magnus loves and occasionally hates about him.

Magnus conjures up a wall of force, barely visible except for the shimmer in the air, and it only serves to make Alec more ethereal as he activates runes and pulls out a seraph dagger he’d had strapped to his calf the whole time. He stands there then, and waits, completely still with his back straight and his muscles tense.

The demons burst into the room like a flood and Alec waits, surveying the numbers, before he unleashes a massacre.

He moves with deadly grace, so much so that Magnus simply cannot keep up with all of his movements despite how intently he is watching them. He sees highlights only; Alec stabbing and slicing and killing, embracing the purpose he was quite literally made for. He drops to the floor and slides underneath a large quadrupedal demon, stabbing upwards and opening its gut as he moves, before flipping up to cut a humanoid ones’ throat. He loses the dagger by throwing it and impaling a skittering shax demon to the wall, screeching as it flies to his fate, but that only serves to make him deadlier. He whirls round, breaks two legs off of a nearby antique table and uses them to impale the heads of the two that dared get close to his makeshift weapon. He breaks the end off a curtain rod leaving it wickedly sharp; uses a corner to jump up high and thrusts it through a neck, severing the head as he spins round and lands on the balls of his feet, ready to pounce.

Blood mats his hair, drips down the sides of his face, but either Alec is too focused to notice or he simply revels in it. There is bloodlust in his eyes as he faces down the last two demons, and Magnus thinks that he can see desperate fear in the way one cowers slightly and bares its fangs. It lunges as Alec does, but Alec feints, steps to the side at the last second and leaps onto its back. He punches with a tremendous force, plunging his hand into its back audibly cracking ribs, and it thrashes and howls in pain as Alec grits his teeth and _pulls_. The demon collapses, Alec standing triumphantly atop it clutching the beasts’ still pulsing heart aloft in his hand. Magnus, despite the incredible sight that is a victorious Alec, shirt ripped to shreds and soaked in blood, cannot help but notice the last demon that had stayed back open its maw and extend a gruesome tongue towards him. He shouts, but there is no need, because Alec _catches it_ in his other hand, twists, and pulls with all of his rune-enhanced strength, tearing it out whole. The demon stops in its tracks as blood pours in a torrent from its mouth, pooling on the floor as it collapses, shudders, and stills.

The air is quiet; calm once more. Alec’s shoulders heave as he breathes heavily, eyes darting around the room to check that there are no more foes to face, before he lets his muscles relax and drops his gory trophies. In Magnus’s eyes, he is a work of art, unrivalled by any master or indeed, any other Shadowhunter. Alec smiles at him, in that lopsided way he sometimes does, and Magnus lets the shield drop, the shield they’d never even needed thanks to Alec’s sheer prowess, his unbridled ferocity.

As the team of Nephilim Alec initially summoned for backup in the fight arrive to escort the gathered warlocks to safety, Magnus steps forward, irreverent about the blood and ichor sticking to his boots and the bodies strewn in his path. He grasps Alec by the shreds of the shirt still hanging off of him and kisses him. Alec’s hands rise up on instinct but Magnus doesn’t care, cannot care, about the blood smeared across his own face and neck, about the fact that they have an attempted mass murderer to catch and bring to justice, because Alec is solid beneath his palms and Alec’s tongue and lips slide hot and heavy against his own.

Alec may be a perfect soldier, an expertly crafted weapon of the angels, but in this regard he is Magnus’ and they will worship each other over any god.


End file.
